


Episode 3 : "Of Void and Tears"

by homoeroticsubtextinspace



Series: Karnaca [4]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Astrophysics, F/F, Gay, Multi, Post-Game: Destiny 2, Ravioli, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Swords, gay but in space, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:33:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26738173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homoeroticsubtextinspace/pseuds/homoeroticsubtextinspace
Summary: Third episode! Shit's getting real!The crew finally does some exploring before they get caught up in events beyond their control.They are still learning how to be a crew alright. It's not easy.They had a sleek dynamic as a fireteam but working as a crew on a spaceship with four more people is something else.Also there is some talk about raviolis at some point.This is the last episode of its kind (you'll see what kind later:)notes are at the end , every words marked by a "*" are explained in the (rather extensive) notes.Dialogues are encompassed in - words words -Telepathic dialogues (yes, it happens) is encompassed in -"" word word""Dialogues spoken over the ship's communication system (for everyone to hear) are marked this way -"word word word" most of it is Numiri anyway.I am very open (not to say starving) to constructive criticism so DO NOT HESITATE to commentsee the art i do of my characters here:  https://www.tumblr.com/blog/karnacacrew , a blog i made exclusively for this story and these characters:) just like for my writing, i'm still trying to figure out mys style.
Relationships: Ana Bray/Female Guardian (Destiny)
Series: Karnaca [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1909798
Kudos: 1





	Episode 3 : "Of Void and Tears"

-I keep having this recurring dream, a nightmare really, I’m in the city* looking at the tower from down in the Telilia Marketplace , but I’m not me, my hands are gloved so I can’t see my skin, yet I can feel I’m not me. The light dims more and more, at first I think it’s because we near twilight , the shadows, the decrease in temperature are consistent. Then I hear people running, screamin, they are terrified. I look up at the sky, and I see it, a shadow, where the sun should be, two long arms stretching across the sky. The middle sphere acts like an eclipse, the light of the sun shines behind it but the thing obscures it more and more. There is a young boy crying near me, he looks at me and speaks, but I cannot understand him, I can’t speak either, all I can do is look at the shadow. And it grows , I see it taking more and more space in the sky, it’s coming toward us, toward the city, now I can hear it too, it must have breached the atmosphere already. I feel my own tears running down my face, so I turn toward the boy and he’s holding my hand now, I kneel, take him into my arms, then it’s only crushing heat, noise, and I wake up.

-this is pretty heavy! And it’s the same everytime? The exact same?

-the scene plays out the same everytime, except for the boy, he’s new, before i could not reach out to him, I couldn’t take his hand.

-have you talked to anyone else about this ?

-I told Anya* like a week ago when she was here, she said some awoken are known to have these vivid nightmares, usually not guardians though. She said she could teach me meditation techniques before going to sleep, but since we left now she never had time to actually teach me.

-you miss her ?

-I do, but it’s nothing new, even back in Sol we both had a pretty busy schedule , especially since Zavala* agreed to put outposts back in the Hellas Basins on Mars. there’s always half a dozen Guardians running around there , which rationally speaking is a great thing, but to be honest the only time alone we can get is when she comes here, well, not actually here, I meant on Enceladus* when the ship was still grounded, and it’s not even once a week. 

Akai and Torres were having a friendly chat in the mess, early in the morning, which was pretty unusual for Akai.  
Torres on the other hand was always up early, or more accurately was alway up , period. As a frame* (even an experimental one) she didn’t need sleep. Or food for that matter, but she enjoyed being here for the social time with the guardians in the mess. Especially in the morning.  
The door opened up to Rosetta, her eyes were barely open , she was still wearing her pijama shirt and shorts. From an outside perspective she almost looked like she was sleepwalking.

-Good morning my dear Rosetta! How was your night?

Charles was always in an excellent mood in the morning , like Torres, he was fond of the social gathering caused by the ‘breakfast’ tradition, it was interesting for them to see organics in a setting where they were not at their fullest potential yet, often revealing their personalities.

-sup chef. Got any of that good red shit?

-one Nessus* cherry juice coming!

She sat next to Akai, giving her a little good morning kiss on the top of the head while gesturing some kind of wave at Torres. Once at the table she yawned like she was trying to take in all the air in the room .

In the kitchen, Charles was pressing one of these huge bright red fruits he had managed to grow from the Nessus tree in the garden, apparently they tasted like acid cherry. The organic crew loved them, and apparently they gave an energy boost . It had soon become a favorite morning drink for Rosetta and Akai. Deidra was more partial to hot chocolate herself, but all attempts to plant cocoa trees in the garden had failed, the temperature, soil requirements and other parameters were just not compatible with the rest of the plants there.   
She was using the matter synthesizer to replicate some every morning, but according to her it was not” the same as a fresh cup of hot cocoa” . they had no ways of producing milk anyway.

After a taste of the glowy red beverage, Rosetta’s eyes seem to light up (or maybe they actually did, who knows with guardians)

-I noticed this morning we’re at warp* again? When did the mining stopped?

-around 5 am ST (ship time) , Numiri and I collected largely enough resources in that asteroid belt to make fuel for the reactor and spare materials if we break something.  
Or if we have other big construction projects.

Rosetta looked uncomfortable for a second, the spire she had built the day before to commemorate the crew of the Exodus white (see episode 2) had costed them few resources but she was a bit ashamed that she didn’t think it through before, they were in uncharted space, light years away from any potential allied ships or planets, and she had gone ahead and dug into their limited resources to build a giant tombstone.

-hey I’m not blaming you or anything, what we did was beautiful and i think it was the right thing to do, I think we all agreed on that. And the minerals we found in the asteroid belt were largely enough to replenish what you used, don’t worry about that.

-thanks Torres, I have to admit I didn’t really think ahead on this one. 

-we have a considerable margin of error considering the amount of power we can generate but it is true that since we don’t know if we will have to power the shields or weapons or any other power consuming systems , it would be best to always keep our reserves at 100%

-hey where are Micah and Deidra by the way, I didn’t see any of them this morning 

-“Good morning Organics! The captain and Michael are at sparring practice on deck 1, they have been at it for two hours already, it is very entertaining to watch!”

-sup Numiri! you’re there too?

“-No Rosetta, I’m on the bridge, but I can still see everywhere, remember?”

-I always forget they can do that.

-where are we heading ? I see we’re at warp again.

-“Oh we don’t have a real destination yet, I’m just testing the conventional engines at max power, so I had to exit Proxima centauri inner system to push the engines at these levels of power.”

-and how are they performing? 

Toress answered her before Numiri could even speak.

-Exceptionally well I must say, I'm keeping a part of my processing power to analyse the data the engines are sending me as we speak, currently we are cruising at a speed of .35 light year an hour. 

-ok, I guess that’s good? These numbers mean pretty much nothing to me, I have a hard time understanding distances in space, it’s so freaking huge anyway.

Rosetta was already trying to change the subject , while Akai had her excited face on, it was clear the numbers spoke to her, afterall she was a big fan of anything that goes fast , and she had worked on these engines alongside Torres for almost two years.   
She was tracing numbers with light conjuring in the air, writing down weird calculations.  
Her friend was looking at her with a smile, she knew akai enough to know she was about to nerd out.

-if i understand correctly we are covering the distance Earth to the sun approximately 22 000 times an hour, that’s REALLY fucking fast Torres!! Wow, I mean the Terracotta* at max speed is not even a hundredth of that! It takes me three hours to reach jupiter at its closest and it’s like 4 AU away!!! This is the fastest ship I've ever heard of!!! I’ve got to modify the engines on my jumpship! Torres I would love you even more if you could help install a similar engine on the Terracotta! I would be the fastest guardian ever!! 

-“Akai ,be careful with this tech, It was designed for much bigger ships initially, the SKAÐI* scientist already scaled them down to a critical size to fit them on a ship as small as the Karnaca. Trying to fit them on a jumpship 30 times smaller could lead to serious problems.”

-I’m not a kid ,I’m not going to blow up the ship Numiri, furthermore Torres will help me with the calculations and we have you for dynamic virtual modeling so this can only go great!

-we will have to completely redesign the airframe though, especially the structural integrity.

Rosetta was less and less interested in this conversation by the second, aerospace engineering was NOT her thing, she was a Weapon and armor designer, a master blacksmith , she didn’t care about how the constant of Chaturvedi coming into effect past the maximum charge of the warp field changed whatever other unpronounceable equation.  
A quick look at Charles showed her that he had a similar experience of the moment

-This going to go on forever, do you wanna go watch the captain and Micah beat each other up?

-I thought you’d never ask!

\--

A bullet flew back toward her face, she barely had time to move before it hit her. The metallic surface of her face felt the heat as the bullet grazed her.

-lighter on your feet! You can’t move as fast if you are encroached into the ground! I know it helps with the recoil but this lesson is about speed, not accuracy.

Michael reaffirmed her grip on her weapon, a Mida multi tool, her favorite rifle, safe, dependable, almost indestructible, it could fire in space, underwater, in a sandstorm, pretty much anywhere you’d need. However one thing it wasn’t built for was this specific exercise.  
Deidra was using her spear, enhanced with her light, to bounce bullets back at her, teaching her how to dodge them .

The bullets used in the training session were made of urothrenane , a soft ceramic material which shattered on impact, losing all kinetic energy, perfect for training , Rosetta had invented them a few years back when she was training the city defense force at the request of Owl Sector*

Even with her memories enhanced with the experience of the redjack leader, she found Deidra’s defense to be impenetrable, in one on one combat, the old warlock was practically undefeatable, consequences of centuries of training. Her only satisfaction of the day had been the blow she had managed to land earlier, when they were training in sword fight.   
Micheal had managed to open Deidra’s guard for a second, almost enough time to land a hit with her knee. She had reacted in the blink of an eye and stopped it ,of course ,but the simple knowledge that her guard was not perfect, and that she , Michael, a Simple combat frame, had almost managed to get in was already a great stride.

The guardian was looking at her intensely, trying to guess her next move, she was going to go for an unusual approach, something she had not tried before, something her captain could not see coming.  
She fired three bullets at her, one at each arm and one at her head, then lunged left, rolled on the side to reduce the distance with the guardian at a maximum. Using her sonnar she could feel her bullets cruising to the exact position she wanted them, and when she got back up she aimed at Deidra’s side, the mouth of the gun now inside her defense perimeter. 

Only deidra was not there anymore, she had turned on the spot, letting the bullets aimed for her limbs speed past her without damage, while the third she had deflected with the handle of her spear, using it as a pole to vault herself two meters into the air, exactly on top of Michael at the second this one was aiming her gun again.

She landed on Michael’s back, planting the spear centimeters away from her face, in the sand.  
To Michael’s surprise she was smiling, usually during sparring practice her face had this neutral, truly indecipherable expression on it. 

-nice try, but against a more agile opponent you should not try these kinds of rolls, they let enough time for your opponent to get away or worse.

-You know what, I really pity whoever had to face you in an actual battlefield.

-don’t despair , you show immense progress, more so than anyone else on this ship by the way, I know this is hard for you with the grafted memories, but I believe there is nothing better than training to better oneself.  
Also keep in mind I had literally two centuries to master my skills, you’ve been at it for less than two years.

Even though she had lost, Michael was feeling good about this session, this was a friendly match afterall. She grabbed the hand her captain was offering , helping her up.

-I don’t know how much more time Numiri needs with the warp tests today, I think i’ll do a low grav session this afternoon, you’re welcome if you want to join in. 

-after or before the space battle drill you said you wanted to run?

-ah I forgot about that! Alright nevermind then! 

She removed her training helmet, a more transparent version of her actual helmet, then began to unbraid her hair. Letting her hair flow freely on her back.

-I think I’ll go for a quick swim, the warp light reflects nicely on the water and it looks relaxing to be in water, in space!

She was right, the shifting blues, oranges and purple shapes caused by the manipulation of space around the ship were casting ghostly figures through the “ window” at the far end of the lounge. Stars looked like streaks of rainbows instead of bright white dots, stretching across the void. The void itself, usually so black , so empty , was enhanced with a dark violet background, tunneling around them. In the wake of the ship, four lines of blue light, disappearing into the distance . The show was breathtaking.

Deidra let her ghost transform her training fatigues into her swimsuit, walking slowly into the hot water , one step after another. With each step, as her body was slowly descending in the water, the pool lights were lighting up, preceding her.

-light control, lounge, 70% dimming.

At her vocal command , the lights inside the lounge dimmed considerably , leaving only the window as a primary source of light. Even the little underwater lights were dimmed.

She let herself float freely on her back , closing her eyes, appreciating the relaxing feeling of the water filling her ears. The only thing she could hear were the low humming of the engines and her own heart beating. Wait, no, there was something else, a... thumping? It sounded close, approaching actually. At high speed.  
She opened her eyes too late, Rosetta was already mid-air, in a cannonball shape.

-WOOOOHHOOOO!

The impact was inevitable, the titan splashed down in the middle of the pool with the strength of a meteor, creating huge splashes, and waves big enough to make the pool overflow. Everything in a 3 meter radius was showered from the fallout. Including Charles.  
The frames were waterproof of course, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be sopping wet.

Deidra, once the initial surprise gone, was in fact very happy to see her friend.

-hello Rosetta, what brings you out of bed this early? Btw you could have at least put on your swimsuit.

-couldn't risk it! The opportunity was too great! You could have heard me if I had taken the time to change!

She was in the water in her PJ , lucky for her she was almost never wearing any kind of shoes on the ship.

They laughed for a bit before getting out of the water. Charles was looking at them play from the upper lounge, he had feared the ambiance on the ship would really go dark after what had happened on their first actual mission (see episode 2), but his fears were unwarranted, unbeknownst to him, the three guardians had gone through much worse before, all the fighting, all the violence they had gone through, it had forged them into what they were now, and they certainly were no stranger to death, to sadness and loss.   
He was happy to see they had managed to keep such luminous personalities despite the horrors they had experienced.

\----

A good hour later, they were both on the bridge, sitting at their usual posts , while Numiri was at the helm.

-I know her enough to know this project is going to be the only thing on her mind for the next month or so, which again does not bother me, I just think it’s cute when she gets hyperfocused on stuff like that.

-I’m glad she has a new project to be honest, Akai’s much less distracted when she has something personal to focus on. Which is good for our mission. 

\- You’re right , better have her at her best. I think she misses Ana though. hey Num how far are we from Proximma now?

-1.4 light years , which is pretty much the middle of nowhere, we are in empty space , but I’m ready to jump to whichever coordinate you want .

-I was thinking we do them in chronological order, start with the earliest launches until we get to the latest ones, what do you think? Both of you?

-I don’t really care as long as we don’t find the same thing each time, which is something we can’t predict, I know.

-my programming urges me to see them all, but the order is not really important to me, however it is probably a safe bet, we know from comm signals sent centuries ago that the two prototype ships, Enterprise and Tereshkova reached their destinations .

Rosetta’s face had lighted up.

-they named the first space exploration ship “Enterprise” ? seriously?

She was smiling with all of her teeth.

-Yes, as far as I can tell, a number of space age ships have been called by this Name, I am not sure why, most other ships are named after famous space explorers.

-ooooh this one is too, very much so, and I’m so glad they chose this one! Do you have anything in your archive about late 20th century science fiction works?

-here we go again- sighted Deidra

-wait I’m looking … Ooooooh, I see, fictional explorers then! 

-yes, but all my research into the space age , before and after the traveller’s arrival show that this work of fiction is one of the major inspirations for actual space exploration!

-it is sweet how humans always want to honour their history .

-oh sometimes they don’t, human history, humans in general are not a homogenous block, it is hard to derive tendencies describing us all. I guess the only constant is complexity.

-and ravioli.

Both Numiri and Deidra looked at Rosetta , visible confusion in their eyes (well, in Deidra’s eyes at least, as Numir had no visible eyes.)

-yeah it was once believed that one unifying trait of every culture on earth was the art of wrapping fillings in dough and then cook... you know what nevermind this is not important!

She was saved by Torres, calling on the internal comms systems to see if anyone had seen her hydrospanner.

-back to navigation, the first one on the list is the X01 Enterprise then, launched april 2067 with the intention of settling the second planet in the Fomalhaut system, 28.6 light years from our position . at max warp it is 82 days away , but i can jump there if you want captain.

-I do, I have no intention of spending 82 days just waiting if I can avoid it.

-same here, she would make us run battle simulation after battle simulation, i can’t take that for 82 days!

-one day you are going to be so glad we did these drills you’ll thank me! Numiri do you need to drop out of warp to jump?

-no, the two systems are separated and the warp field does not interfere with dimensional displacement. We will reappear at warp though, so do you want me to jump outside of the Fomalhaut system and then reach it by conventional means?

-mmh yes this is probably the best idea, we have no idea what we’re gonna face in this system. Maybe the colonists have a defense system in place, we wouldn’t want to trigger it and antagonise them this way.

-alright, “Numiri to all crew, prepare for 3D Jump, like sit down or something, you probably won’t faint the second time but it won’t be a great feeling either”  
Captain, I leave you the honour of pressing the command!

Deidra looked down at her arm rest, a holographic purple button was growing from the metal, she pressed it and immediately, the inner light turned to purple, as space outside the bridge was folded into layers of light and dark. The last thing she saw before being forced to close her eyes due to discomfort were these flat layers transforming into infinitely complex geometrical shapes. For a second she thought she saw something else in the shapes.  
She could feel the ship trembling, a strong shaking she did not remember from last time.   
She was not conscious through it last time though.

Numiri was right, the second time was less straining on the body, especially for the synthetics, they had felt almost no effect, whereas the three guardians were not feeling too well. Deidra was nauseous, Rosetta was throwing up in a bag she had prepared “just in case” and Akai was still unconscious (on deck 4 though, Torres was with her, trying to see if a pinch could wake her up) (-it did-)

-ugh make the shaking stop.

-it has Captain, and this shaking was not part of the jump,I’m checking my diagnostics to see where it came from. During the jump we exit this physical dimension, we should not feel any physical effect at this point. What your bodies react to is only the entering and exiting of the tunnel effect state. 

-whatever, my stomach is not a big fan of it.

Rosetta was still throwing up.

Deidra was already feeling better, she was trying to remember the shape she had seen among the others. It was weird, she could not remember it, like what she had seen there was only meant to stay there, in this other realm.

-what caused the shaking then?

-I’m … I'm not sure, this is not supposed to happen, I’ll program extra safeguards around the inertia dampeners to prevent this in the future.

-tell me Numiri, this drive of yours, was it ever tested with humans inside?

-of course, but for small jumps only, the biggest jump they made me try was Enceladus/Charon*. The scientists inside the ship exhibited the same symptoms as you. And I told you they don’t last, most scientists began showing resistance after two or three jumps.

-maybe it’s because of the distance, 28 light years is a pretty huge deal, maybe you designers didn’t take into account some stuff about vast distances. Stellar drift maybe? Or gravity distortions?

Numiri was looking troubled, the captain’s explanation was not convincing them, something else had happened, they had to find out what, and soon. They were afraid this new side effect was dangerous for their new friends, as they would not forgive themselves if they hurted them through carelessness .

Rosetta was looking behind them, at the window, or rather through the windows.

-hey I'm no expert but isn't Fomalhaut supposed to be a class A star? Kinda like the sun?

-yes it's a A3 V, mostly similar to Sol expect for an excess infrared radi… oh... 

They were orbiting a giant blue star, the shields had been automatically deployed yet the hull was heating up quite quickly. 

-this is CLEARLY not Fomalhaut, this is a class O star. A blue supergiant. We need to get out of here rather quickly though, the gravity well of the star is pulling us toward the it, we cannot afford to get much closer, the hull temp is already exceeding the safety parameters!

-GET US THE FUCK OUTTA HERE THEN!

Artemis had appeared over Rosetta , screaming with a voice full of panic.  
She had no time to stress any longer though, as the familiar distortion of space before the ship as it was entering warp was already forming. A second later they were cruising at their maximum speed, away from the giant star, which was still visible through the warp field, growing smaller and smaller with each passing second.

-ok so i think we probably need to speak about what just happened? First of all , where are we? Next, why did the jump engine take us here and not to our intended destination? Lastly we clearly need to reinforce the hull if it heats up this easily.

Akai and Torres choose this exact moment to burst in on the bridge, both asking what the hell was that about.  
Numiri was looking less sure of themselves. Not a familiar sight for the crew.

-hm so the spectral analysis of the star indicates it was an O4If(n)p , the only star with this specific classification we know is SUHAIL HADAR, a blue supergiant located something like a thousand light years from Earth. 

-A THOUSAND????? we travelled a fucking thousand light years in one jump? So that’s one for the record books!!

Everyone stared at Torres for a moment, of course she was going to be thrilled about it , these were her engines afterall.

-girls can we please focus?

-yes captain! I am not sure about the second question however the third is more complicated than that, I’m not sure you fully encompass the temperature this star gave off. Sol’s surface temperature is around 5800 degrees kelvin . a class O star is around 44000 degrees kelvin. Our hull and shields could without trouble stand almost in contact with Sol for a good day, Class O stars however are extremely rare, and we know no materials capable of withstanding prolonged exposure to such full band radiation for more than a few seconds.

-mmh I see, I should read up on these kinds of things. I have a feeling this is going to be useful.  
Nothing on what malfunctioned then? Your inner diagnostics are silent?

-I’m afraid I don’t have anything Captain, 3D jumping shuts most of my physical sensors, since we leave Euclidean space for a second.

-tell that to Akai, I’m not that much into astrophysics. Can we make another jump? Or are we going to have to spend an eternity warping home?

-I will attempt to jump again then, everyone should probably sit down. This is a small jump, less than one light year, I’m going to run extensive diagnostics drawing the transfer.

-hey Deidra ,If it works can we do a rapid succession of small jumps? I’d rather feel like shit for half an hour now than everytime we jump for the next week.

-good idea! Is that something you can do Numiri? Several small jumps following each other? Is it dangerous for us organics?

-I will limit the number of jumps to 5 , it should be largely enough to make your bodies get accustomed to the dimensional shifts . I suggest you all sit down and strap in though, a rapid succession of jumps has never really been attempted. Launching in 3,2,1, Now!

-WAIT it has never been done before??

But it was too late, the space distortion was already forming, the blueshift of all light on board was another indicator that they had gone through the threshold already.  
Akai and Deidra closed their eyes this time , not willing to get sick from the transfer one more time. But to their surprise they were already feeling better, the only annoying effect was this feeling of compression, more uncomfortable than painful.  
Unlike the last two times, the sensation dissipated quickly, only to come back a second later with the following jump. At the third jump, Rosetta and her captain were able to stay fully conscious , while Akai had a harder time keeping her eyes open, although the nausea was gone.  
When they reappeared in normal space at the end of the fifth jump, none of them were feeling any ill effects, they had perfectly adapted to the feeling.

-ugh this was unpleasant, I’m glad it’s behind us !

-I’m analysing the data from all the jumps, and there is absolutely nothing indicating any kind of interference like the long one we did, I just don’t understand what happened on this one, the shaking was also absent this time.

-I did notice the ride was rather smooth, maybe the issue is just long distances? If that’s the case i suggest we split our large jumps into several smaller ones to avoid this kind of discomfort and potential navigational errors.

-where are we anyway?

Akai was checking the navigational charts, not sure of what she was reading.

-a dozen light years from our previous position, i jumped us into empty space, there are no stars in less than 12 light years around us.

She leaned in for a closer look at her holoscreen.

-stars no but there is something on short range scan.

-yes it’s a rogue planet, billions of years old, i detected it earlier but i thought it was not really relevant to our current schedule.

-Numiri we talked about this, you have to tell us this kind of thing, we have to know what’s around us if we are to act at peak efficiency on this bridge!

-I’m sorry, it won’t happen again captain! Do you want to jump to our initial destination then?

Akai pushed several buttons and the stellar map on her screen change disposition.

-WAIT! We are technically closer to the Tereshkova destination now aren’t we? I’m looking at the map and from our position it seems it is closer than Fomalhaut, by a few dozen light years.

-it won’t change the length of the jump anyway, but if you want I can change destination.

They both looked at Deidra, sitting in the captain’s chair.

-whatever, we’ll have to visit them all eventually anyway!

-setting course for TRAPPIST 1 

The three friends were waiting for the weird sensation to overtake them once again but this time it was even softer than usual, almost as light as what you feel when you put your head underwater.  
From the windows of the bridge, they could all see clearly now how space was folding during a 3D jump, it was a beautiful sight, as short as it was intense, before any of them could speak about what they were seeing, the jump was over and the ship had reintegrated conventional space.

The ship was sitting on the outer edge of the TRAPPIST 1 system; in the middle, a small star was discernible, considerably dimmer than Sol. The augmented reality mechanisms of the bridge were already putting bright blue circles around the nearby planets. 5 were visible with the naked eye, and another 7 were indicated by the sensors.

-I just checked the star charts, this is the right system, we have reached our destination this time.

-Rosetta, anything on the sensors? EM radiation? Subspace? Num, which planet were they aiming for originally?

Numiri was projecting several archive files before them, swiping quickly between each of them while Rosetta was checking the full sensor array.

-Undisclosed in the files Captain, at the time of the launch, in 2068, it was believed that three of the inner rock based planets were potentially habitable, but further surveys in the next centuries showed that life was potentially developed on 6 of them.

-Deidra I have nothing on the EM band, nothing at all, only background radiation from the cosmic bodies.

-let’s not despair just yet, maybe they abandoned electromagnetic frequencies as carrier waves like we did in the late golden age?

-I have nothing on Subspace either… Wait! I’m detecting a spike here and here!

-zoom in.

The windows rippled like water for a second before displaying the coordinates Rosetta was aiming the sensors at.  
It was in the middle of space. Not on any of the planets.

-I don’t see anything…

Deidra’s look was already darkening, this was shaping to be another dead end, literally. Another defeat in their search.

-wait, light is redshifting around this region of space, there is something there, can you add an infrared lens to the bridge Num?

She wasn’t even done with her sentence that the filter changed drastically what they were seeing.

-Is that...?

-It looks weird, I’m not sure…

Rosetta and Akai were double checking their screens, what they were seeing was not something they thought was possible.  
An immense vortex was standing before them, eating away at the rare particles of dust laying in interplanetary space. Each particle of matter being devoured was heated by friction before disappearing into the event horizon leaving behind a frail trace of red.

-is this a black hole?

-a small one then, it doesn’t have an accretion disk, it’s probably not big enough to threaten the planets.

-the readings are not coherent with a black hole, this thing isn’t sending any hawking's radiation. Wait it’s not sending any radiations at all. None, not even gamma.

-What are we seeing in infrared then ? 

-I have no idea Deidra, this is well outside my field!

Numiri was observing the singularity silently, something drastically out of character for someone who had a very hard time being silent otherwise. When they finally spoke, their voice was shaking from excitement.

-We are making history my friends!

-what?  
-why?  
-How?

-this is not a black hole, this is a naturally occurring wormhole, a bridge to another region of space! It has been theorized several centuries ago and some scientists tried to create small ones in labs but it has never been actually observed! Ooooh I’m recording so much data this is so huge oh my I can’t wait to analyse all that! This is so cool!!

-glad to see at least one of us is having fun.

All the head turned toward Michael, who was sitting at her post in tactical. She had been silent for a while ,they had forgotten she was still on the bridge.

-You’re right Michael, we have a mission here. Can things enter this wormhole?

-That’s what I'm trying to discern, I’m going to allocate 30% of my ressources to the study of this phenomenon, we should have simulations in 5 to ten minutes. Rosetta I'm displaying the scans of all the planets of this system on your screens right now, see if you find anything pertaining to the Tereshkova.

-why am I the only one with homework? - joked Rosetta with a chuckle.

Deidra was looking at the inventory of the Karnaca on her screen, she knew she had seen probes somewhere on the list, but she couldn’t remember what they were used for or how many they actually had.

-Akai, can you move us into the atmosphere of this gas giant over there? I’m seeing huge amounts of helium three in the upper atmosphere, we can use that as fuel , replenish what we used performing so many jumps.

-roger that Captain.

-It’s still weird when you guys call me that.

-I mean i can stop if you want, it’s just fun seeing Numiri going all formal on you when you’re on the bridge.

-mmh I guess I’ll just have to get used to it.

A few moments later, Numiri had called the whole crew to the CIC, where they had worked on a simulation to project on the star map in the middle. Made of kinetic sand and stone, the map was a true masterpiece of arts and engineering, the details were astonishing yet at the same time some rough edges remained, creating sculptures of exquisite nature , moving around on a softly lit platform engraved with all sorts of symbols.   
Presently it was showing how space folded on itself several times to form the wormhole, collapsing a great part of the asteroid field into it. The wormhole also modified the gravity of the inner planets, pushing them closer together. On the display, they looked like billiard balls dancing around each other without ever touching.

-thanks for coming everyone, I'm done with several possible outcomes and formation theories as to how and why this marvel of nature is here!

Akai softly whistled in admiration.

-you’re already done with your calculations? Fuck that was fast!

\- I was built for that , remember?

Both Rosetta and Deidra sighted, these two were always so admirative of each other, the bond they had was closer to the friendship two passionate little kids shared than the work relations Numiri had with the rest of the crew. Afterall Akai had been the first person the AI had talked with in seven centuries. That was not a trivial thing. Most of the time it was charming, cute at best, right now it was a little bit irritating . Akai was not known for her ability to focus and Numiri, due to their processing capabilities, was closer to the worst case of hyperactivity humanity had ever seen. 

-right! Ahem, so, moving on! The wormhole is currently destabilised, it’s impact on subspace indicates it has been slowly decaying since its formation, however, the rate of decay seems to indicate it was stable for a good 200 years , and dubiously safe for another 60 .   
Right now I would advise against going through it, it seems the rate of acceleration near the event horizon would tear organic matter appart.

-okay so no wormhole tour , got it.

-However!...

-wormhole visit after all??

-hahaha, no Akai, not for us. I suggest we send one of our probes through it, they were made for this kind of gravitational shear, well, not exactly, more for black holes actually but this is far less destructive so the probe should be fine. 

-ah yes I knew we had some of these! Uh , how many do we have exactly? 

-eight, but we can replicate more if we need, they are not that big.

-oh are they the oblong black things in storage 3 near engineering?

-yes, that’s exactly it, they were never installed in the launching tubes because, well because i never thought about it before to be honest, it seemed pretty useless when we were still on Enceladus. And we’ve been quite busy since.

-are they in working order?

-i just scanned them, 7 of them are good to go, one is missing it’s power cells. Otherwise they are designed to withstand enormous amounts of damage, so the tech itself is quite safe. 

-We launch one into the wormhole then? I’m curious to see what it will do!

-I'll go prep one, wait for me to launch. I really want to see it.

-sure thing.

Akai left the CIC in a hurry, followed closely by Torres, both enthusiastic to see what the probes were made of.

\----

Rosetta was on the bridge, detailing the data about the inner planets. Everyone else had left safe for Deidra, who was writing on her holographic keyboard in the captain’s chair, visibly very absorbed by her writing.

-The properties of the 6 inner planets are incredible, they are filled with life already! All six of them! Can you believe that! Six separate epicentre of life in one single system! Do you think one of them contaminated the others through asteroid impacts? This is fascinating!   
I understand why they chose this system! 

The titan* wasn’t sure her friend was paying attention, but to her surprise, Deidra answered her immediately. Without looking up from her screen though.

-at the time they had no idea what was on it though, and the planets were further apart, they embarked on faith alone. I guess that’s what explorers do, cast off into the unknown, only with the wish to see what lies beyond.

-you mean they had faith of the heart.

-i guess so, weird way of saying it though.

Rosetta was refraining very hard from bursting out, she knew she was the only one her joke was appealing too, but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.   
Deidra knew her friend enough to suspect what this was about but this time she was too absorbed by the log she was writing on the Tereshkova.

She had decided to keep a detailed log about everything they saw out there , this one was still rather empty though. They had nothing on the fate of the spaceship. Not a single debris, Numiri had scanned the entire way between Sol and TRAPPIST 1 searching for a familiar energy signature or EM emission, but it was empty, and almost a thousand years later , the warp trail was entirely blended with the cosmic radiation background.

On the log she was also adding what they had discovered about these planets, chemical composition, meteorological data, temperatures, pictures... and a mental note to explore them another time. Afterall, with the travel technology they had they could always come back to it later.

-hey I kinda want to make a low pass on one of the planets, the 2nd one, it looks amazingly similar to Earth, almost the same size and mass, the same composition , atmosphere and all.

-just a quick flyby then ? 

-I’ll take the helm, I don't have a lot of opportunities to do so.

She was right, since Akai had been designated as the helmswoman (by herself, but she definitely was the better pilot of the bunch so maybe it was a good thing) , Deidra had had little time to actually pilot her own ship.   
She enjoyed it greatly though (at least in the simulations, but thanks to Numiri they were 99.98% accurate to the real thing) . The ship was phenomenal to handle, extremely nimble for its size, it could out-turn most city made jumpships, and the raw power of its sublight engines was impressive as well. The only real downside was the drag in atmospheric flight, the ship was designed to look good and perform admirably in space, In air, even upper atmosphere, the shape of the ship was creating a phenomenal amount of vortices, providing no lift whatsoever and creating more drag than a brick. The friction of compressed air on the hull was noisy too, it created an annoying whistling at supersonic and hypersonic speeds.

Deidra pushed the throttle slowly, marveling at the power she had at her command. The ship, which was hovering silently in the atmosphere of the gas giant , suddenly rushed to considerable speed. It was hard to see in space but the sublight engines were flashing bright blue behind them. 

-we’re creating friction with the interplanetary medium Deidra, you might wanna slow down, any stuff we hit will be sent through space at the same speed, it could hit other things in this system. 

-shields up, it will disintegrate the dust in front of us.

As soon as the button was pushed, a semi transparent purple bubble appeared around the ship , only to disappear the next second from the visible spectrum. The only sign that it was still on was the little impacts in the front, making small bursts of purple light on random intervals.

-there’s a lot of space dust in this system, do you think it’s the remnant of the asteroid ring that was swallowed by the wormhole?

-I suppose so, I have to admit I don’t know much about space right now, I’ll have to brush up on it , it seems we encounter these kinds of things on the regular now.

-I have several great books on the subject in the library if you want, I'll get you a selection.

-Thanks , by the way, I think you should be more patient with Akai and Numiri, this adventure is a pretty big change in our life and I know Akai was struggling to find stability again after the red war, and now she’s separated from her girlfriend too, I think her enthusiasm is her way to prevent herself from panicking about the void standing before us.

-I know, I felt bad about berating them earlier, it’s only natural that they get excited about what we are living, it’s hard to forget that this is not a combat mission. I’m so used to leading people to war that I forget what it’s like to lead them in times of peace. The trauma of the red war is a shadow over all of us I’m afraid.

-hey we’re here for you remember, all of us, talk to us, you’re not only our captain, you’re our friend, my friend, don’t let this kind of darkness be only your burden to bear. 

-you’ve grown a lot since we met , you know that .

Deidra was finally opening up , the last few days had been tense, she had skipped several meals, and her sleep was almost nonexistent, she was afraid her anxiety was bleeding into her command, and Rosetta had just confirmed it.

The Karnaca was hitting the upper atmosphere of the second planet, from orbit it looked sublime, the vegetation on the surface wasn’t ruled by a specific colour like Earth, but instead every bit of land was covered in a rainbow of explosive colours. Even from this height , it was evident that the planet was swarming with life, the oceans had patches of colourful algae floating at its surface, following the curves and vortices made by the surface currents . Deidra had reduced the speed drastically, the ship was now in the lower atmosphere, cruising at a comfortable speed over a set of islands. A great number of birds ( or what looked like birds) took flight, frightened after hearing the sounds of the engines probably .

The design of the bridge was showing its full potential during these kinds of panoramic flights, and the low speed flight over these islands was offering a marvelous vista to look at.

-Akai, charles, everyone, come take a look here! It’s worth it

Charles was the first one to answer.

-Indeed, I’m in the lounge, I have a great view from here! Micah is here enjoying with me.

-on my way to the bridge!

Akai and Torres were still working on the probe, or at least that’s what they said they were doing, and from the hangar on deck 4 , there were no windows on the outside.   
The inertia dampeners were so efficient on the ship that they probably hadn’t noticed the ship had been moving at all.  
Deidra stabilised the flight in a curve around the coast of one of the larger islands, there was an active volcano on its far end, but this side of the island was overflowing with vegetal life.

-do you think they know?

-Torres could have interfaced with the ship to see what was happening but maybe she was too focused on the probe to think about it. I hope it’s gonna surprise both of them!

From the face Akai made upon arriving on the bridge, she clearly didn’t know they were on a planet. For Torres it was harder to see , her face had relatively little moving parts and most of her emotions were only discernible through her voice or body language.

They both ran toward the window, pressing their faces against it, trying to take in all this beauty. 

-you had time for a trip to Hawaii I see!

Most of the bridge chuckled at the lighthearted joke.

-by the Travellers pants! I want to go for a swim!!

-me too but i think it’s a bad idea to expose ourselves without full enviro suits, we have no idea what kind of lifeforms we could be vulnerable to.

-we’re immortal Deidra, I mean we literally cannot die! You bet I’m going down! 

She left the bridge running, in direction of the starboard airlock .

-oh what the hell she’s right, we’ll take extra time in decon upon return and things will be alright!

-Rosetta I really think we shouldn’t .

-nah I think it’s a great idea, and Akai’s right, if we get a deadly virus or anything, we can just die and be resurrected immediately, I don’t see the issue here.

-you go ahead then, I’ll stay behind to fly the ship.

-or you could land on this beach here , it’s not like one of these birds is going to steal it !

Deidra was conflicted, on one hand she really wanted to join her friends for a quick dip, but on the other she also was afraid of the consequences on their long term health. 

-go ahead captain, I can see you do want to go . it’s giving me an idea about decon, I’ll call you once i’m done, enjoy your swim!

The last brick holding her back was fracturing, she was going to join her friends and they were going to have a great time , fun, something they hadn’t shared this freely in a long time.  
-Numiri can you land on this beach? Fireteam STATIC is leaving for a swim!

With a big smile on her face she left the bridge to go up to her quarters to change. A quick look to the window on her left informed her that akai, who had already changed into her swimsuit, had jumped directly from the airlock into the ocean, 30 meters or so lower.  
She looked at her twist and flip through the air before impacting the water.

-ouch!

\----

Akai was looking at the airlock mechanism, waiting for the air pressure to be equalized with the atmospheric pressure. She was thinking about Deidra, how she had turned into a mom friend all of a sudden, well, not so sudden, she had always been the most rational of the group, even before the Karnaca, but since they had left Sol she had been so protective of them, too much so, according to her own tastes.  
She wanted to talk to her about it, make her captain understand that while they had elected her as their captain, she was also their friend, and a guardian like them. Like her.  
-""We’re not kids, she doesn’t need to treat us like children, and we’re not kindergardians either, I know what I’m doing most of the time""   
As she was mentally ranting she wasn’t expecting a voice to answer her, so when her ghost, Oganok answered her she was a bit startled.  
-""You know it’s because of the war right? She probably had to bury most of the guardians she knew from two whole centuries after the red war. That’s why she’s so protective of us now, she doesn’t want to bury more friends""  
-""I know…we all respond in our own way to the trauma I guess. I just want her to know she can trust us to look after the crew as well, that she doesn’t have to be the only one carrying the ship. I love her, you know that, and I’ve seen her depressed before, I would do anything for her to feel better again, but she has to let us in before that can happen.""

-""That’s not her forte, remember she was called “she who walks alone “ for a good 70 years? ""

-""But that’s not who she is anymore, she has been married since, taken plenty of mates, and she’s in a fireteam now, she is part of a crew, I know she had a hard time getting to trust Numiri, and I can’t blame her with all the shit this loveable dumbass is getting us into , but she’s not alone anymore, I want her to know that!""

-""Talk to her then, tell her exactly that!""

-""Mertsat you know I’m not good with words, especially in front of people. ""

-""You could write her a letter? You need to reach out to her, the recent events are probably putting her into a lot of stress and disobeying a direct order like you just did is probably not sending a great message""

-""Oh shit i didn’t see it that way! Letter it is then, I’m gonna write it tonight you’re right. After I get to swim in these perfectly clear waters. Do you have my suit loaded?""

The little ghost abstained from answering, instead directly switched her outfit to her dedicated swimsuit, an open back one piece suit which perfectly enhanced the colour of her skin. She looked down at the fabric, thinking it could use more decoration, maybe something metallic?  
“Maybe I could ask Ro’ for upgrade ideas? “  
The question was more rhetorical than anything else, and she stepped through the now open door of the airlock without waiting for an answer

The ship was describing a large circular pattern, sliding on the port side slowly toward the beach, with each passing second the sea floor was becoming shallower and shallower, if she wanted to jump it was now.

The small woman bended her knees, taking in energy for a good jump, maybe even a double jump to really get away from the ship, take some altitude .  
This was the scary part, but also the exhilarating one, the few seconds before the fall, when the heart speeds up, knowing what awaits. She had jumped much higher heights in her life, in combat, in space, but usually she was in armor , and this time she was doing it for the fun of it, without mortal peril awaiting at each meter of the fall, well, at least she thought nothing was here to harm her specifically.  
The decision to jump was an impulsive one. Had to be, to go against every survival instinct her body could have.  
Before she could even begin to fall she looked into herself to summon her light, using it to find material footing in the immaterial, extending her lunge with a second one.

Below her was 30 meters of void, maybe more, the goal was to make the most of it before impact! The first flip was more of a test of the air resistance, but Rosetta had been accurate in her description, it felt exactly like Earth. The longer she fell the more complicated her figures were, starting with a simple rotation of the torso to intricate tilted flips. 

She impacted the surface a second earlier than she would have liked, her figure was not complete. The first thing she felt was annoyance “damn I missed my entry!”  
The second one was pain, intense pain . her back had impacted the water first, and apart from the burning felt by the skin, she suspected she had broken one or several ribs on impact, maybe even punctured an organ. The pain was short lived , the familiar presence of her ghost near her , the welcomed glow emanating from him, he had started healing her already. Fixing such small damage was an easy task for the little ghost, I mean damn most of the time he was literally bringing her back from the dead after incineration or immeasurable gunshot wounds, and these were just the more usual ones. 

Akai’s head emerged from the water , just in time to see a shadow before her, followed by an enormous splash. An unmistakable tsunami reached her before she could even see what had happened. She was rather used to it though, this was Rosetta's signature move, not even limited to water, she had once seen her Titan friend launch herself from her ship to drop on enemy forces like an actual meteor. 

One time, several years ago, she had attempted to do so on a cabal outpost on Mars , several centurions were hiding behind a fortified wall, so she had decided to transmat back to her ship in order to bypass the wall.  
Except she had not not noticed the Cabal dropship, one of these nast Harvesters, which had decloaked to reinforce their positions. She dropped on the right position, plowing right through the ship and into the ground, cracking the stone, literally vaporising the enemy forces.

When she emerged, Akai was waiting for her with a small piece of seaweed, eager to throw it at her friend.  
The ship was landing on the beach nearby, and to their surprise, Deidra stepped out of the airlock, wearing her swimsuit and carrying several towels.

-Yes!!   
the little woman was overjoyed to see her captain join in on the fun.

She ran toward the water, a big smile on her face .

They played for a time in the sea, launching themselves in the waves, floating on their back, taking in the sunlight.  
Once the ship’s engine had been cut, the flying creatures had returned, flying in circles above them, visibly curious. These were not the only creatures showing up, on the beach , sniffing the landing struts of the ship, the towels or looking at the guardians with confusion.  
Weird two legged creatures were intruding in their territory, were they friends? Food? Predators? 

On the seashore, Torres was walking in the sand , the crests of the waves were licking her feet. She was enjoying this mini vacation.   
Michael approached her silently, careful as to not scare her.

-I had no idea it was this beautiful…

-alien worlds? 

-no, I mean yes, of course but I’m talking about the sea, I saw what it was like in the lounge but i hadn’t imagined in person it was so… alive, I can feel it breathing, the waves, the wind,the smell... this is breathtaking! I could see myself living near the see in the future!

-technically it’s the first time for me too, but the memories I hold gave me a pretty good idea of what it was like on Earth. Although this is different than where Dahlia had been on Earth. On earth the sand isn’t ochre, it’s more white or completely black. 

Torres turned toward her friend.

-Black sands?? Wow this must be so cool! Although I like this one, I think I’ll take some for my quarters, like in a glass jar or something.

-yeah In Iceland in the Atlantic ocean there are many black sand beaches, I’m sure there are many other places too but I don't know about them. Deidra lived there for a while, I’m sure Blacksmith must have pictures of the place . Oh if you do bring back some sand make sure there are no creatures inside, it would be cruel to starve them in a bottle.

She nodded and sat in the sand, the waves were slowly going up to her bottom half, she could feel the warmth of the water through her sensors , she really was glad they had stopped on this planet.

\-----

-these fruits look very appetizing! Let’s see the chemical composition!

Charles was strolling along the border between the beach and the forest, he could hear all the creatures fleeing before he even was close, which was probably for the best, he had no wish to harm any of them if they attacked him.   
As he was scanning various plants , roots and fruits, he noticed he was now several hundred meters from the ship, pretty isolated from the others.

-mmh i should get back .

-Nah it’s alright I’m monitoring the surroundings, I’ll transmat us to the ship if i see anything dangerous. 

The frame screamed a high pitch “aaaaaah” , startled by the sudden appearance of Sobek above his shoulder.

-oh my bad , I thought you knew I was here.

-well i didn’t , but I’m glad you are, I do feel safer with a ghost at my side! Oh can you transmat all these samples to biolab 1 ? i want to see if we can grow these things, use them as spice or even an actual food source!

-sure, but didn’t Deidra ask everyone to submit anything coming back to the ship to extensive decontamination? 

-I set up biolab 1 expressly for alien samples, I had a feeling some time ago that we could use a lab specifically designed to analyse and contain foreign materials?

-before we left Sol?

-no just after, I took some of that lichen we found on Proxima centauri b but it feeds directly on ionizing radiation so we can’t do anything with it . After that I modified one of the empty labs on deck 3 to do these kinds of experiments in a controlled environment.  
-good initiative! Why didn't you set up a specific section of the garden for that purpose?

-the equilibrium of the garden is fragile, I don’t want to introduce anything that could hurt my other babies before I had time to analyse all the effects it could have on the plant life we already have. It is our main source of food right now afterall.

-lucky we only have three organics on board. I don’t know how we could support more lifeforms. Imagine if the garden dome gets damaged or if we have an explosive decompression on deck 1 or 2, the whole garden would freeze instantly!

-I thought about it when they did that battle simulation with the asteroid field, you know the one where they crashed into a hive dreadnought at the end? I asked torres to set up a secondary transmat server for the garden , directly linked to the emergency bulkheads, if there is even a drop in air pressure or temperature on board, the whole content of the garden is stored as engram in this secondary server, this way we can take as much damage as we want, the plants are fine!

-wow , that’s… very smart! Good thinking! By the way the thong you are holding is not a fruit it’s a slug. 

The frame looked at the purple mass he was holding in his hand, he had been so caught up in this conversation that he hadn’t noticed that what he thought was a fruit was now crawling from his hand to his arm.

-uuuugh, disgusting!   
He dropped it hastily ,his hand was full of yellow slime,smoking yellow slime? Now that’s pretty weird...  
Upon closer look, the slime was slowly dissolving the metal on his hand 

-fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!

From the beach where the three guardians and Torres were sitting/ laying down, the sight of Charles running past them, screaming , smoking from one hand, was rather incongruous.

The orange frame went straight to the ocean, plunging his smoldering hand into the water. Upon contact with the sea his hand went “pshhhhhhhh” 

-AAAAHHH, that’s the good stuff! Sobek did you analyse this horrible substance?

-yeah, it’s mostly chloridric acid, I think it’s a defense mechanism, looks pretty efficient if you ask me!

Akai and Deidra were approaching rapidly, looking seriously concerned. Akai had summoned her bow, she looked rather weird this way : hat, sunglasses , wearing only a swimsuit and a pareo, with a weapon of war in her hands.

-what happened Charles, did you get attacked? Are we in danger?

-Yes, we must stay away from the slugs at all costs!

Sobek was using the tone of voice when he was on the verge of laughter, Charles thought it was a shame he didn’t have eyebrows (or eyes for that matter) to launch a devastating look toward the little blue ghost.

-it’s nothing captain, the acid only had time to eat a superficial layer of metal, no real damage here, I’ll just recoat it and it will be fine.

-slugs? Acid? 

Akai was looking at them with a weird expression on her face, only to explode in laughter a second later, dematerialising her bow while she was tearing up. 

-you got attacked by slugs?

She couldn't even hear the answer over the sound of her laughing. 

-well no, not attacked, i picked up thinking it was a fruit.

The three guardians and Torres were all cracking up now.

-Alright , leave the poor Charles be now, he will learn from his mistakes ,we all did, no need to be ashamed chef, it happens.

Akai was still very much enjoying this, but the others were calming down. 

-this might be a sign that it’s time to get back to the ship, it’s been, wow, it’s been three hours already! Weird, this planet must have very long days, it feels like the sun hasn’t moved at all!

-uuuugh now we have to spend an hour in decon…

Akai and Rosetta were sighting at the idea of spending an hour standing in a boring room with an annoying zooming noise.

-actually captain i wanted to talk to you about the modifications I made to the Transmat system!

-you’re done with them already? 

-yes, it was simple once I knew what i wanted. I think I just rendered decon useless , now the transmat has an active biofilter in the rematerialisation software, it can detect and suppress any foreign molecules you were not carrying when you left the ship.

-how accurate is it? 

-isn’t that going to prevent us from collecting samples on alien worlds? 

-no, no, any sample you wish to collect will be transmated separately, directly to Charles lab, this way we can safely transport down to any planet without the risk of bringing anything back with us. As for the accuracy, the scans are based on the scan patterns of your ghosts so i’d say it’s pretty accurate.

-Torres you’re a genius, this is an amazing advance! Remarkable tech! Well done!

Akai was really admiring her friend's ability to (as it seemed ) effortlessly solve problems that had caused previous generations of engineers and inventors sleepless nights of anxiety.

-ok, in this case I guess we can simply transmat back inside then?

-just say the word and Numiri will take us back.

The team quickly vanished from the beach in a silent bolt of light, as the ship was already powering up engines. The only remains of their presence were the footprints on the sand.

From the woods, several pairs of eyes watched anxiously as the Karnaca elevated itself slowly , then accelerated to the roar of the magnetoplasma thrusters, leaving behind a quickly dissolving halo of blue light.  
The grip on the spears loosened as the creatures watched this strange apparition vanish.

\-----

Back in orbit, the ship was quickly accelerating, leaving behind this planet of unexplored wonders .  
-I think i’d like to come back here one day!

-when we’re done with our mission, maybe we can study this world in detail, maybe even set out an outpost if we find no sapient species. 

Torres was standing on the bridge, looking at the blue dot fading in the distance through the window, Akai was sitting at the helm directly behind her.   
The rest of the crew was talking about how close they could get to the singularity without harming the ship.

Through the immense windows of the bridge, the wormhole seemed monumental, even with the infrared filter it was hard to really make out against the darkness of space. Only several red streaks were really visible. The vortex itself was only warping matter, light was passing through unencumbered. 

-Everyone ready for our first probe launch?   
Akai and Torres were riveted by what they were doing, by the sensor logs they were going to receive.  
Numiri was climbing the stairs to the CIC, to get a closer personal look at the reading they had displayed on the central map. 

-on my mark , 3-2-1-LAUNCH!

A small shiny dot exited the ship’s starboard side , leaving behind itself a trail of blue light.

As it neared the event horizon of the monster, more and more telemetry was being transmitted: space density, gravity, radiation… The probe was working spectacularly well.

At the moment it impacted the event horizon, the probe seemed to separate into a dozen probes, all going in different directions, leaving weird intricate blue lines behind them, the patterns were symmetrical from the center, the actual point of impact . the lines were multiplying, like a kaleidoscope , crossing each other, drawing beautiful patterns. 

Torres turned to Akai for a second.

-it’s magnificent! Do you think matter is actually warped once inside the maw or the event horizon acts like a lens, unable to accurately project its reality in our Euclidean space?

-ugh I , I have no idea really, the only thing I’m sure of is that the gravitational shearing inside the wormhole is about 20 times what it is next to the maw, we would have never survived entry with the ship.

Suddenly one of the gauges on Akai‘s screen turned red, and another one, followed closely by a dozen others. A few seconds later they were all red, a bright red message was displayed on all screens: 

“SIGNAL LOST”

-well that was anticlimactic…

From the bridge the mouth of the wormhole was still displaying the reflections of the probe , now beyond counting, all diverging and converging like a broken mirror.

-I think this thing only shows the actual moment of passing the event horizon, not the actual trip. It might even be the reflection of the probe when it approached from our side.

Deidra was looking at the patterns.

-so it’s destroyed?

-most likely, I've recorded a steady increase in gravitational shear and heat during the whole progression , but we cannot know for sure, maybe it’s just stuck in a gravitational eddy, or the heat just knocked out the sensors, or past a certain point it’s just too far to communicate via subspace, or it could just be that whatever is on the other side destroyed it when it appeared, or this is actually the exit end, or…

-I get it we have no idea!

-yeah pretty much…

The captain slouched back on her chair

-at least we tried, if the Tereshkova did pass through all these years ago, at least the probe will try to contact them on its own.

-wait did you program it to search for the Tereshkova?

The rest of the crew was looking at their captain.

-well yeah, that’s what we are here for, not just a scientific expedition!

Some nodded, Akai was mumbling: “ true, true, no doubt no doubt” 

The captain sighted, then displayed her log on the main screen of her captain’s chair.

-I’ll mark it down as inconclusive, after we haven’t found any debris or sign of crash. No signs of the colony ship at all actually. 

-two try, two failure, our luck better change soon, this is getting annoying. 

-you’re right Ro’! It better change!

Akai left her poste to hug her captain, a gesture she was usually not the first to initiate.

-we will find help, i refuse to believe all the colonisation effort of our species were failures, i just don’t want to believe that. 

Deidra returned the hug warmly. It wasn’t long before Rosetta joined in .

-alright alright, I think we should send a transmission to the Tower about this system, let them know what we’ve found so far. Now that we’re here it’s not like the vanguard can order us not to go right?

Numir’s voice sounded over the PA system, they sounded a tad worried.  
-“Captain I just sent the report through subspace, but the readings are … not possible actually, you should come and see for yourself”

-we’re on our way , project them on the meeting room wall.

The ball of hugging guardians separated back into individuals. The stairs behind the captain’s chair, between the two tactical stations, were relatively narrow, allowing only one person to ascend at the time, directly to the CIC.   
Whoever had designed them probably thought that the crew would mostly use the elevators, because the tiny stairs were rather impractical in reality.

Numiri was sitting at one of the stations in the CIC, the comms hub specifically. They were frantically typing in the air on a holographic keyboard, visibly troubled.

-so what’s the problem you talked about? Is it too far for our comms range? 

They curled their fist into a ball, absorbing all the intel displayed on the station, got up to the conference room and opened their fist there, allowing the displays in the room to show the data they were working on. 

-nice trick, but I don’t see a problem, Sol is something like 40 LY away, last time i checked our subspace range was around 300 LY .

-maybe the wormhole is impacting our comms? It IS a hole in subspace afterall.

-i thought about that too but no, the singularity is only active in the lower energies of subspace, we are broadcasting on very high energies, it’s kinda similar to the EM bands, they do not cross.

-we know how subspace work mate, I think we should put some distance between us and the wormhole anyway, we never know what could come out of it.

Rosetta looked a bit more anxious than usual, why was she suddenly stressing out about this? 

-Ro’s not wrong, warp us out of here, we’ll try again when we’re further out.

Numiri sighted, and the scenery changed on the windows of the CIC, they were turning out of sight of the wormhole. And when the crew was expecting the shift of acceleration usually accompanying the transition to warp speed, they instead felt the now familiar compression felt during 3D jumps. The lights all shifted to blue/purple.

-we said warp Numiri, not jump, ah whatever, this way we’ll see if it was the wormhole or not immediately.

They dropped in a rather empty part of space, one of the vast expenses of interstellar void.   
Akai was looking at the star charts.  
-ok so nothing around us in a 62 LY radius

-is the transmission still blocked?

-like i said , it's not blocked, it's… it's annihilated, upon reaching the coordinates of Sol it just … disappears. Gone, like we never transmitted anything.

-what kind of thing could cause that? A very powerful jammer?

-it's not jammed, it's non-existent. 

-try sending a signal to proxima b, to the beacon we installed there!

-sending ...aaaaand received, loud and clear.

Akai was touching her hair , playing with one of the spikes that never went away, her friends knew her enough to know she did that when she was stressed out, which was never a good sign. 

-so it's not from our side… I have to be honest girls, I have no idea what kind of phenomenon could cause that.

-Alright Akai,hell you can't know everything about space , it's not your fault! Numiri? Got any hypothesis?

-No captain, I'm empty on this one. There is nothing, absolutely nothing in the collective knowledge of humanity until the collapse that could explain this .

Rosetta was starting to sweat nervously, the tension on the CIC was quickly rising. The captain was pacing around in the conference room, Akai was going through archives with Numiri. She was the only one who had come to the conclusion apparently. She was going to have to tell them, they would freak out, at least Akai would freak out, it meant something else for her.

-girls, if no signal can get through, it means we can't warp or jump back to Earth. 

-WOW easy on the speculation there!

-bolje she’s right, information and matter are more than often blocked by the same phenomenons, at warp we surround ourselves with a subspace bubble, if that can’t get through, I don’t see how the 3D jump would be any different. And we can’t go back to Sol in sublight, it would take us … wait, at maximum engine capacity, from the oort cloud to Earth it would take more than 3 years, the engines are not capable of such use…

Akai was looking at the stars outside, defeated, she wanted to cry, she was never going to see Ana again, never see the city, never see anything she knew, ever again.   
At the far end of the table, Deidra was still pacing. When she stopped, she had made a decision.

-Numiri, jump us back to Earth orbit, we need to be sure of this, no more speculation. In the meantime…

She hit the “open broadcast” button on her holographic interface.

-”Attention all crew, we are about to attempt a jump back to Sol, in light of recent discoveries it might be a bumpy ride, or a failure altogether, regardless of the outcome of this jump, I want everyone at their post, we don’t know what we could face out there. “

It wasn’t long before Michael showed up on the bridge, where the three guardians and Numiri had relocated after Deidra’s announcement. They were all wearing their armors (which wasn’t that much of a change for Numiri, as they roamed around the ship perpetually wearing a spacesuit of their own design) 

-reporting for duty Captain, are we expecting battle? Should I charge the weapons? 

-no but prep the shields. We never know. 

-copy that.

The frame took her post behind them, on the tactical arch next to the stairs. A seat sprung out of the floor to allow her to be safely harnessed in case of rough hits.

-ship control,red alert.

At the words of the captain, the interior lights all shifted to a shade of orange/ red, the blast shields descended on the windows of the bridge and CIC, protecting the already sturdy glasslike material with tritanium alloy sheets thicker than her (already impressive) arms.

From the outside, the ambiance lights highlighting several windows , the airlock and the name of the ship, all shut down instantly. The white coating of the ship was slowly turning into a dark grey, in order to make visual contact harder.   
All these modifications had been added to the original design by Rosetta, the resident weaponry expert. She had seen her fair share of space battles (notably the infamous Cabal evacuation of Phobos*) enough to know what worked. She had been working on them before they had left, with the goal of engaging the Karnaca in numerous battlefields all over the Sol system.

-all systems nominal, shield at a 100%, blast shields integrity 100%, engine power available… 98.6%. We are good to go captain. 

-hit it then.

With the blast shield obscuring the windows, only crucial information was displayed on the windows, the folding of space during a jump was not among them, so the only indicator of the process was the light compression they all felt.

Until the turbulence hit them.

The whole ship was shaking like crazy, a hundred times more than during the first incident involving 3D jump malfunction.   
They could feel their bodies being pulled in different directions, a very painful feeling. Deidra and Akai were screaming, while Rosetta was holding her head in her hands. The three little ghosts were on the floor, their luminous eye shut.  
Even Michael was on her knees, the pain she felt was not physical, it was mental.

On the bridge, every station and the augmented reality holograms on the windows were all showing incoherent readings, glitching meaningless words , switching into other languages, distorting characters.   
One second and the shield gauge was at its fullest , another and it was entirely depleted.

Numiri was the only one not feeling any pain, however, for them it was only terror, for the first time in their life they were blind, their sensors were completely incoherent, they could not figure anything that was happening to them, whether it being the ship or this exo body.   
They wanted to scream, but their body was seemingly frozen, they couldn't move, couldn’t make a sound. The ship itself, their original body, was slipping out of their control. 

And just like that, it was over.

All the pain, the shaking, the nausea… gone, like it never existed.

The windows were displaying a binary star system in front of them, the biggest star was a bright blue star, while the second one was a smaller white dwarf.

-I think we can safely say this is not Sol , and whatever the hell that was back during the jump is confirmation that we cannot jump back to Earth. Where did we end up?

-not sure yet, the star charts are still updating. Ah, we are 2 light years away from the Izar system, some 202 light years from Sol. 

-mmh at least we didn’t jump into a star or a black hole…

-so that means we are stranded right? We can never go back home? No no no this can’t be happening! 

Akai was understandably freaking out, it meant the end of her hopes of ever seeing her girlfriend again. For the other it meant a colossal wedge driven straight between them and their primary mission. Mission that was supposed to bring help to the solar system.

-I don’t know about never , if there is one crew able to figure this shit out it’s you , a few years ago we thought it was impossible to jump between stars like we do now, and further back it seemed impossible for the traveler to wake up, and it did. Our current understanding of the world might be at fault here. I have no doubt in time we can make the better of this situation. 

She was holding her ghost Blacksmith in her hands, like the others he had had a hard time during the jump, and the first thing they had done once the jump was over was cuddle their ghosts.   
Oganok, Akai’s ghost, usually the quiet type, flew from the fur on his guardian’s collar to the center of the bridge, his voice was still shaky but also full of hope.

-We will accomplish our mission , maybe this setback will make it harder but there is no way a space anomaly is what is going to prevent us from our goal! We went through worse before! Time and time again we faced off against insurmountable odds, Deidra, you survived Twilight gap and countless other hopeless battles, Rosetta , with your help we defeated SIVA, we faced Orix and killed him, we faced the red legion, and they were destroyed, Not us!   
This is nothing, a minor setback, let’s see it not as a barrier but a challenge, another one to conquer!

\- Yes! 

-he’s right!

Several others were agreeing out loud with the little ghost’s statement , they were gonna go through this and emerge victorious.   
Akai was proud of her ghost , he who usually had such a hard time speaking to others.  
In the meantime , Artemis was hovering over the sensors console, which was flashing with a bright orange exclamation point.

-not to spoil the moment here but we are receiving a distress signal coming from this solar system.

They all turned and looked at the console. On it was written “audio distress beacon”  
Rosetta pushed right on the middle of the exclamation point.  
Immediately a voice, cracking up from interferences:

\- “ MAYDAY ,MAYDAY, this is the Wuriupranili II, requesting immediate assistance,I repeat, immediate assistance! MAYDAY”

\---Vocabulary---  
Destiny specific terms:

THE TRAVELER: sort of planet shaped deity (smaller than Pluto), hovering silently over the last city on Earth. It uplifted Humanity with technologies in the early/mid 21st century. Supposedly it is ageless, traveling among the stars uplifting species.

-THE LAST CITY : technically “the last safe city on earth” a gigantic city built under the Traveller in the mountains of chile , located near the modern town of Uspallata. It is not however the only settlement. Only a third of humanity lives here

-THE COLLAPSE: "the end of the world" a general collapse of all infrastructure and countries in the 2320 due to an overwhelming alien invasion . Almost all intel on the actual events is lost.

-GUARDIAN : warriors resurrected from dead bodies by a ghost to wield the light (energy) as a weapon to defend Earth and humanity. They have no memories of their previous life, only their bodies.(the protagonists of the game)

-GHOST: little AI in the shape of a little star around a ball , no bigger than a grapefruit, they were created by the Traveller before it went into silence, they are tasked with finding "their" guardian and bringing them back to life.

-OWL SECTOR: civilian intelligence organisation from the city created to gather as much tactical and technological information to help further the safety of the people.

-THE RED WAR: main storyline of Destiny 2. Basically a full scale alien invasion of the last city.

-TITAN : subclass of Guardian, they usually are big and smart, their main asset is raw power and resilience. They wield specific powers that no other classes can use 

-HUNTER :subclass of Guardian , they usually are small and agile, their main asset is speed and marksmanship. They wield specific powers that no other classes can use (like double jump, they can take a second jump mid air to reach higher)

-WARLOCK: subclass of guardians: they usually are mysterious and focused on research. Their main asset is versatility and understanding of the Light . They wield specific powers that no other classes can use

-ENGRAM: new state of matter, where mass disappears into information only. One of the major discoveries of the golden age.

-Arc/Solar/Void : the three types of energy the Light turns into , the first one manifests itself as electricity, the second fire and the third as dimensional flux

-EXO: robotic body allegedly designed as a soldier , made to house a human mind.

-The vanguard : Elite guardians (three of them, one of each class) who coordinate the last city’s defenses, organize assaults on enemy strongholds and assassinations of their leaders, and mentor newly-risen Guardians. Some Guardians work directly for the Vanguard as scouts, investigating potential threats to the City far afield. At the beginning of the game there were three: Cayde-6 (now passed) Ikora and Zavala

-Kinderguardians: how freshly risen guardians are called by everyone else.

-Frame: a frame is a robotic body , not made to look like a human (although it is of humanoid structure -2 arms two legs, a head in the middle of shoulders) most frames do not have a personality programmed into them, some do.

-AMRITA project: a series of colony ships launched from earth during the golden over a period of 300 years they bear the name of colours preceded by the name EXODUS.(see episode 1)

\----- alien species of the collapse: -----

-The Hive: The Hive are a race of insectoid aliens that worship and serve the Darkness.They also follow the teachings of the Deep, specifically a principle known as The Sword Logic.(the strong devours the weak…) they house a race of worms in their bodies , whom they revere as gods.

-the cabal: The Cabal are a warmongering race of giant bipedal humanoids with a heavy-set, rhinoceros-like appearance. Their ever expanding Empire spreads through organization, efficiency, and corruption.

\-------------SPACE VOCABULARY---------

-Warp: simplistic word used to describe the effect of the space altering tech used to propulse the ship faster than the speed of light.

-CIC: combat information center, on deck two of the ship, directly on top of the bridge, it has a conference room with a huge table , an observation window to the front of the ship and a physical display of the celestial position of the ship.

-AU: astronomical unit, roughly 150 million kilometers (the average distance between the Earth and the Sun)

-LY : light year, unit of distance corresponding to the distance reached at the constant speed of light in a vacuum in one year. ( close to 63 241 astronomical units)

-Enceladus: one of the biggest moons of Saturn, birthplace of Torres, Numiri and the ship itself.

-Nessus: a planetoid in a transneptunian orbit, it was terraformed by the vex and developed its own life because of that

-Charon : one of the five natural satellites of the dwarf Planet Pluto. It orbits Pluto and Pluto orbits it, the center of this dance (barycenter) is outside Pluto itself

Since every guardian/characters are of different origins, they all have a “mother tongue” they sometime revert to when speaking, together they all speak Quechua or English (and i write it in English because i do not speak Quechua) it’s specified in skills in the crew manifest but here it goes, in details:

Akai’s natural language is Russian, she uses it for endearing terms an general expressions (that I’m writing in latin characters because i want you people to hear it) It is also Numiri’s and Torres’s natural languages

Russian :

Mertsat: affectionate name for her ghost, roughly means sparkle

Bolje: while not religious, Akai uses it as a means to show her disbelief or awe at something. It means “god” or “gods” depending on the context.

\----NAMES: --

-Anya: Anastasia Bray, a centuries old guardian, and one of the only guardians who know who she was before her resurrection. Currently dating Akai

-Terracotta: The name of Akai’s personal jumpship, it means “baked earth” , which she doesn’t know yet because she just thought that sounded cool.

-SKAÐI project : (skaa-dhi) the name of the project which saw the construction of the Karnaca.


End file.
